avi with black screen.

[thegoat]

I have just downloaded an avi movie and it plays with a totally black screen but the timer still going. When I resized media player, the picture suddently appears. However, to see a MOVING picture, I have to keep resizing the window (ie, moving it up and down). Does anyone know what this problem is and how to fix it?

[setarip]

Do you know which video codec was used to create the .AVI?

If not, I'd suggest you do the following:

1) Load the file into VirtualDub

2) From the "File" dropdown menu, select "File Information"

3) Post (here) EVERYTHING you see (both video and audio information), or post a screen capture .jpg of the information box

If you are unable to do the above then, from within Explorer, rightclick on the file and click on "Properties". Select the "Details" tab. Although it won't provide as much information, post (here) EVERYTHING you see (both video and audio information), or post a screen capture .jpg of the information box.

[thegoat]

Thanks,
I downloaded virtual dub and was able to see it fine in that. I then burnt the file to a cd and was able to watch it fine at home, so that will have to do. Thanks for all your help anyways!

[setarip]

"and was able to watch it fine at home"

I gather that means that you observed the problem on a differently configured (work?) computer...

[BigPants_KU]

I have had this exact same problem with AVI files on multiple occasions, and it's really frustrating! I'm trying to watch a clip now that is doing this. I'm converting it to mpeg with TMPGEnc so I can watch it, but obviously this is a sub-par option, as it's just a demo I want to watch then delete, and the conversion takes forever.

I don't have VirtualDub so here's what's in the WMP properties window to get started:

Length: 21:42
Bit Rate: -
Media Type: Video
Video Size: 768 x 404
Aspect Ratio: 1.9:1 actual, 1.78:1 displayed
Audio Codec: MPEG Layer-3 Decoder
Video codec: InterVideo MPEG4 Video Decoder

If this doesn't help, let me know I'll install VirtualDub and do it that way. Thanks for anybody's help in advance!

[paglamon]

Please provide information about your file using either GSpot (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/GSpot.htm) or Mediainfo (http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en).

[BigPants_KU]

Thanks for the help! FYI, this same phenomenon is pretty much happening with every AVI I try to play with WMP now. Here is the body of the txt file that Gspot generated for this particular avi file:

720_StarCraft2GameplayVideo_EnglishUS.avi
281,319,858 1 AVI(.AVI) 0 Split 504 33 OpenDML (AVI v2.0), 0 1556 DivX 5.1.1 (Maupiti) Codec(s) are Installed DX50 1.782 21:42.080 39023 29.970 MPEG-4 1.000 29.970 0.178 1.782 720 404 160 CBR 2 0x0055 MPEG-1 Layer 3 Codec(s) are Installed 48000 .

[paglamon]

Can you play them in Media Player Classic (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm)?

[BigPants_KU]

No. MPC 6.4.9.0 does the exact same thing. You can hear the audio, but have a black screen. Any time you move the screen or resize, it looks ok. So if you keep moving the window around you can see it, but obviously that sucks.

Thanks.

[anonymez]

Set Media Player Classic to use VMR9 in Options-->Output, should work fine then. For Windows Media Player, disable overlays.

Might be a performance hit and undesirable levels adjustment, in which case, make sure DirectX & graphics card drivers are up to date. Certain applications that require graphics hardware acceleration (like ObjectDock, for example) can also cause this.